minoanmiss (
minoanmiss) wrote in
agonyaunt2020-10-15 12:25 pm
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Dear Prudence: My Partner Thinks I’m a Monster for Getting My Building’s Maintenance Workers Fired
All I did was speak up about an issue that affected me.
I live in a huge apartment complex with about 500 tenants. I happen to live on the back side of the complex, with a window facing the Dumpster in the alleyway. Many of the maintenance workers hang out in that alley when they’re not working. I’ve been working from home for six months now, meaning I spend way more time overhearing their conversations than I used to. They probably spend three to four hours a day just shooting the breeze. They laugh loudly, speak at a way higher volume than necessary, and tell an endless number of sexist jokes in Spanish (I speak Spanish fluently so I can understand every word). I hate having to listen to sexist vitriol for literally hours every day. I’ve tried headphones and a white noise machine but neither block out the sound.
I finally gave up and emailed management. Three of the guys were fired. They have been replaced with workers who spend significantly less time joking and hanging out in the back alley. I view this as a win: I don’t have to be subjected to this for hours every day, and the guys learned a valuable lesson about not going on sexist rants at work. My partner, on the other hand, is angry at me. They say I should’ve just talked to the men myself (which seems naïve, considering they clearly hate women) or, in my email to the complex, asked for the men not to be fired. I disagree. All I did was speak up about an issue that affected me—it’s not my responsibility how the complex chooses to handle it. My partner is basically saying I’m a monster for getting blue-collar workers fired. We cannot seem to move past this issue. Did I do the right thing? What can I do now to get my partner and I past this difference of opinion?
—Not Sorry They’re Gone
I’m not sure getting past this disagreement is the most important objective here. You two feel quite strongly about a serious difference in priorities, values, and objectives, and I don’t think you should rush to gloss over those differences in order to keep the peace. Your concern about being ignored or demeaned had you approached these men telling sexist jokes strikes me as legitimate, although I also take your partner’s point that you likely had more options in between wearing headphones and emailing their employer. To that end, I can’t agree that you had nothing to do with how the complex chose to handle your complaint. You’re not directly responsible for management’s decision to fire them, and your partner’s belief that ending your email with something like, “Hey, don’t fire these guys” seems comically naïve, but you cannot deny that your email and their firing are linked.
But I can’t simply make a ruling over whether you did the “right” thing. You don’t seem to regret what you did, so don’t pretend you do in order to placate your partner, nor should you pretend you’re not relieved they got fired by acting as if you had nothing to do with their getting fired in the first place. You did have something to do with it! Your partner seems to disagree with a choice you made, not with the type of person that you are, and that’s worth discussing more. Continue to have a conversation with your partner, with a couples counselor if you think that’s useful, as honestly and as carefully as you can, neither minimizing nor exaggerating each other’s position in order to score points, with an eye toward envisioning a possible future together. Good luck.
I live in a huge apartment complex with about 500 tenants. I happen to live on the back side of the complex, with a window facing the Dumpster in the alleyway. Many of the maintenance workers hang out in that alley when they’re not working. I’ve been working from home for six months now, meaning I spend way more time overhearing their conversations than I used to. They probably spend three to four hours a day just shooting the breeze. They laugh loudly, speak at a way higher volume than necessary, and tell an endless number of sexist jokes in Spanish (I speak Spanish fluently so I can understand every word). I hate having to listen to sexist vitriol for literally hours every day. I’ve tried headphones and a white noise machine but neither block out the sound.
I finally gave up and emailed management. Three of the guys were fired. They have been replaced with workers who spend significantly less time joking and hanging out in the back alley. I view this as a win: I don’t have to be subjected to this for hours every day, and the guys learned a valuable lesson about not going on sexist rants at work. My partner, on the other hand, is angry at me. They say I should’ve just talked to the men myself (which seems naïve, considering they clearly hate women) or, in my email to the complex, asked for the men not to be fired. I disagree. All I did was speak up about an issue that affected me—it’s not my responsibility how the complex chooses to handle it. My partner is basically saying I’m a monster for getting blue-collar workers fired. We cannot seem to move past this issue. Did I do the right thing? What can I do now to get my partner and I past this difference of opinion?
—Not Sorry They’re Gone
I’m not sure getting past this disagreement is the most important objective here. You two feel quite strongly about a serious difference in priorities, values, and objectives, and I don’t think you should rush to gloss over those differences in order to keep the peace. Your concern about being ignored or demeaned had you approached these men telling sexist jokes strikes me as legitimate, although I also take your partner’s point that you likely had more options in between wearing headphones and emailing their employer. To that end, I can’t agree that you had nothing to do with how the complex chose to handle your complaint. You’re not directly responsible for management’s decision to fire them, and your partner’s belief that ending your email with something like, “Hey, don’t fire these guys” seems comically naïve, but you cannot deny that your email and their firing are linked.
But I can’t simply make a ruling over whether you did the “right” thing. You don’t seem to regret what you did, so don’t pretend you do in order to placate your partner, nor should you pretend you’re not relieved they got fired by acting as if you had nothing to do with their getting fired in the first place. You did have something to do with it! Your partner seems to disagree with a choice you made, not with the type of person that you are, and that’s worth discussing more. Continue to have a conversation with your partner, with a couples counselor if you think that’s useful, as honestly and as carefully as you can, neither minimizing nor exaggerating each other’s position in order to score points, with an eye toward envisioning a possible future together. Good luck.
(frozen comment) no subject
I think I may have once gotten someone fired for extreme circumstances (or maybe transferred) although I didn't quite mean to complain.
My car transponder had stopped working at night(when it couldn't get replaced until the next morning when the property management office was open) which meant I had to call our security office to open the garage when I was going in or out. I had gone to a midnight showing of the Avengers and returned home around 3:30am, called the security office and the subsequent chain of events involved:
- me having to walk over a block in poorly lit construction at said hour to get into the security office
- the security guard threatening to "lock me out until morning and I could just sleep on the street" (again middle of the freaking night downtown) because I had had the temerity to seem a little impatient that he wasn't buzzing me in
- said threat had occured AFTER I had already shown him my driver's license which clearly indicated that I lived in the building
- I had called the security office to be buzzed in following the instructions of the guard on duty earlier in the evening when we had realized that my transponder had died.
So in the morning I go in to the security office to get my new transponder and I ask the day guard (who was totally competent and likeable) about overnight guy while I was waiting. The property manager heard us talking and asked me for more details, so I explained.
I was most definitely NOT sad not to see that particular guard on duty again in my building!
(frozen comment) no subject
With the second case, the employee and his family were still living at the building so we sent a memo saying "So-and-so is no longer working for us but still lives in the building, please respect his privacy and remember that all service requests should be placed with the office." A couple of the tenants who had called in about his behavior in the two weeks leading up to that memo called us to say "I hope he wasn't fired because of what I said" - no, you're not directly to blame, you were a piece in a much larger puzzle.